WIN
WITHOUT WINNING: So the US court says publishers owe freelance
writers extra money for electronic publishing rights. Publishers
just include electronic rights with paper rights in a take it
or leave it deal. So freelancers are unlikely to come out ahead.Wired 06/28/01

TOO
POPULAR? "Could it be that accessibility is a dirty word
for many literary pundits? Certainly the great postwar movements
in literature — the nouveau roman in France, the formlessness
of much American beat literature, the disjointed anti-narratives
of John Barth, Donald Barthelme and Thomas Pynchon — helped marginalise
the conventional novel, depositing it in that critical file marked
Antiquated and Reactionary." The
Times (UK) 06/28/01

Thursday June 28

REINVIGORATING
AN INSTITUTION: Book-of-the-Month Club used to be a giant
of the publishing business. But its influence (and number of customers)
has declined precipitously with the success of online booksellers
and superstores. Now BOTM is returning to its roots, appointing
new judges in the hopes of regaining its influence.The
New York Times 06/28/01(one-time
registration required for access)

ANYTHING
NOT TO PAY: Publishers are busy removing freelance material
in their archives rather than pay free-lancers for electronic
rights after Monday's Supreme Court ruling in the free-lancers'
favor. The Writers Union says "These threats are a slap in
the face of the United States Supreme Court and they are particularly
distressing because we, from the very beginning, really put out
the olive branch to the industry saying, 'We'd like to work these
solutions out with you'."Inside.com
06/27/01

BASIC REVIEW:
What
is happening to the art of book reviewing? "There is nothing
the book industry - and, I suspect, many authors - would like
more than to get rid of reviews entirely. We are not
effective advertising. Our focus on content rather than image
makes us hopelessly out of step with the times. In the twenty-first
century we may well become an endangered species - a few of us
kept alive in captivity to serve as quote whores, but otherwise
extinct in our native habitat of books."Good Reports 06/28/01

TRYING
TO GET TWAIN RIGHT: Berkely Press is issuing "the only
authoritative text" of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.
Trouble is, Berkley made the same claim for an earlier, different
version of the novel. And Random House publishes "the only
comprehensive edition." Why the confusion? Blame it on 19th-century
typesetters. "They don't make a very great many mistakes,"
Twain complained, "but those that do occur are of a nature
to make a man curse his teeth loose."Nando
Times 06/28/01

PRIM AND PROPER WORD:
If you're writing recipes or a technical manual for in-line skates,
Microsoft's Word software may be just the thing for you. But if
you're writing a bodice ripper, or good old fashioned erotica,
the word processor's built-in thesaurus, "whose 222,000 words
are purged of any sexual content," will probably let you
down.American Prospect 07/02/01

Wednesday June 27

MARK
TWAIN'S LATEST STORY: "The Atlantic Monthly's publication
this summer of Mark Twain's "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage"—a
story Twain submitted to The Atlantic in 1876 that was essentially
forgotten and remained unpublished until now—has drawn renewed
attention to the author and his connection with the magazine.
The relationship began in December, 1869..."Atlantic
Unbound 06/25/01

Tuesday June 26

SUPREMES
- WRITERS RETAIN E-RIGHTS: The US Supreme Court strikes a
blow for freelancers, ordering publishers to treat electronic
rights for published material as separate. Now publishers, including
The New York Times, "face the prospect of paying substantial
damages to the six freelancers who brought the lawsuit in 1993
and perhaps to thousands of others who have joined in three class-action
lawsuits against providers of electronic databases, which the
court also found liable for copyright infringement."The New York Times 06/26/01 (one-time
registration required for access)

PUBLISHERS
REACT: Publishers say they will begin removing freelancers'
work from electronic databases as soon as possible. A spokesperson
for the New York Times said "about 115,000 articles by
27,000 writers would be affected. All appeared in the paper
from about 1980 to about 1995." The
New York Times 06/26/01 (one-time
registration required for access)

STRUGGLING
WITH MEIN KAMPF: Since the end of World War II, Germany
has stuck to a policy of banning all speech that could be construed
as pro-Nazi. The party itself is illegal in Germany, as is the
publication or sale of the writings of the Third Reich. Now, debate
has reopened on whether or not to allow the distribution of Mein
Kampf, Adolf Hitler's blueprint for world domination. New
Statesman (UK) 06/25/01

Monday June 25

FREELANCERS'
BIG WIN: The US Supreme Court has ruled in favor of freelance
writers and photographers, voting "7-2 that compilation in
an electronic database is different from other kinds of archival
or library storage of material that once appeared in print. That
means that copyright laws require big media companies such as
The New York Times to get free-lancers' permission before posting
their work online." SFGate 06/25/01

Sunday June 24

LET
THE SCHMOOZING COMMENCE: As BookExpo, Canada's largest publishing
convention, gets underway in Toronto, there are signs that things
may be looking up for the industry. For the first time in several
years, Chapters, the nation's dominant bookstore megachain, is
sending a sizable contingent to the convention, and overall, the
atmosphere is noticably more cooperative than it has been in quite
some time. The Globe & Mail (Toronto)
06/23/01

A
LOT OF BLANK PAGES: When Douglas Adams, author of the best-selling
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" books, died last
month, he left behind less of a legacy than his publisher had
hoped for. Adams, who was famous for crippling bouts of Writer's
Block, had produced only eight pages of writing in the last ten
years while working on a novel for which he received a whopping
$10 million advance. National Post
(Canada) 06/23/01

RECAPTURING
RESPECTABILITY? Clive James was once described in The New
Yorker as being "a great bunch of guys" who seemed
unable to settle on which personality should be dominant. James,
who has been writer, TV personality, and Japanese game show host,
is releasing two volumes of essays this year, and he admits that
this renewed attempt at "seriousness" is prompted in
part by the fear that the more frivolous aspects of his career
would define his place in history. The
Observer (UK) 06/24/01

Friday June 22

A
POET LAUREATE FOR THE MASSES: The U.S. has a new poet laureate,
and if you were hoping for a seriously high-minded, no-nonsense
craftsman, you're going to be disappointed. Billy Collins, who
teaches at Lehman College in upstate New York, believes that humor
"is a door into the serious," and his irreverent style
has made him a favorite of magazines like The New Yorker and
radio programs like A Prairie Home Companion. Dallas
Morning News 06/22/01

Thursday June 21

THE
PERVERSION OF COPYRIGHT: "Try to talk to any normal American
about how this country’s copyright law has gone off the rails,
and you’ll likely witness a new speed record for how quickly his
eyes glaze over. That’s why, when I want to communicate the horror
of modern copyright law, I use the example of horror writer Stephen
King, who (at least in theory) is a potential victim of the current
state of the law."
Reason 06/18/01

COPYWRECK:
Proposed changes to Australian copyright law will allow European
and American publishers free access to Australia. "The effect
will be that new Australian writers will find no financially viable
local publishers able to pick up their work and nurse and carry
their first few relatively unprofitable books during the time
that it takes for a writer to mature and find a substantial readership."
Sydney Morning Herald 06/21/01

Wednesday June 20

STANDING
BEHIND YOUR WRITER: Earlier this year, when a judge ruled
against Alice Randall's right to publish her parody of Gone
with the Wind, many thought the project would die. But publisher
Houghton Miflin stood against the odds. ''You have to stick by
your authors. 'Many publishers drop a book like a stone after
one negative review, but we were sticking by our author. We felt
her book had integrity, and we were not going to abandon it.''Boston Globe 06/20/01

E-BOOKS ARE
COMING. SLOWLY, BUT THEY'RE COMING: "To expect a practical
business plan for unmediated electronic publishing to arise full
blown from the existing industry would be to disregard the waywardness
of human endeavor, the complexity of the emerging digital future...
the wish of today’s publishers to enter the digital future in
approximately their present form. But to assume... that a reasonable
business plan may not sooner or later emerge would be to ignore
the persistence and ingenuity with which human beings have invented
their world so far."New
York Review of Books 07/05/01

A
FRENCH BOOK INSTITUTION: Bernard Pivot is a literary institution
in France, where, for 28 years, he's hosted a TV program on books.
Times have changed since the program started, though, and as Pivot
retires this summer, many fear the French government television
network will not replace Pivot and continue the show.The New York Times 06/18/01(one-time
registration required for access)

MUSIC
AS MUSE:Some writers need silence to concentrate; others need music.
"Like fiction, music is an art that exists in time. Like
fiction, music is always promising an imminent conclusion and
then introducing complications. Like fiction, music can be plain
to the point of plainsong or as intricate as counterpoint, and
both extremes can be satisfying."The New York Times 06/18/01(one-time
registration required for access)

Tuesday June 19

UNIVERSITY
E-PRESS: While e-publishing bedevils most commercial publishers,
university presses are forging ahead with e-projects. The advantages
are many for academic books, and since university presses tend
to be collegial with one another rather than competitive...Publishers Weekly 06/18/01

GEISHA
SUES: "Memoirs of a Geisha, an account of a young girl sold
into the geisha world who overcomes the animosity of a rival geisha
and becomes one of Kyoto's most luminous geishas, has sold four
million copies." Now the retired geisha who provided Arthur
Golden with much of his background for the book is suing Golden.
"She said that by using her name, despite what she claims
was an agreement to keep her identity secret, Mr. Golden disparaged
her reputation in the geisha community, which has for centuries
maintained a tradition of discretion. She is now suing him for
a portion of the book's profits. The
New York Times 06/19/01 (one-time
registration required for access)

THE
COMIC WEB: Once a national pastime (half of the U.S. population
regularly read comic books in 1945), comics in the '90s flirted
with extinction: Only one in a thousand Americans were buying.
But comics may prove to be indestructible, thanks in part to a
secret weapon - the Web."Wired
06/18/01

Monday June 18

TRACKING
BOOKS: Accurate statistics on book sales have always been
difficult to come by. Now Bookscan, a unit of Soundscan, the company
that brought order to recording sales stats, hopes to tame the
book industry; it has signed up major chains and booksellers.The New York Times 06/18/01(one-time
registration required for access)

A
FAKED HISTORY: Esteemed historian Joseph Ellis taught a class
on Vietnam and America at Mt. Holyoke College, but the "personal
recollections" he included in the course were fabricated.
Ellis, reports the Boston Globe, had never served in Vietnam.Boston Globe 06/18/01

POWER
OF THE PRIZE: In general, literary prizes help sales of a
book, helping it stand out from the other 14,000 books published
in a given year. "The less information consumers have about
something, the more they're forced to rely on such third-party
imprimaturs. This helps explain a curious fact about American
literary prizes: they generally help relative unknowns much more
than stars." The New Yorker 06/18/01

DIGGING
THE PAST: Historical fiction is hot. "You can pick any
serious American writing from the past decade, any novel or short-story
collection that either crossed over to the best-seller lists or
won a major award, and the odds are good it's historical fiction.
This is surprising because American fiction hasn't been like this
for decades – if at all."Dallas
Morning News 06/17/01

OH
TO BE A CANADIAN POET: Book critic Dennis Loy Johnson is impressed
with a Canadian poetry award - the Griffin - that gives poets
$40,000. "If giving already wealthy poets big cash prizes
and throwing them fancy balls is putting poetry back in the mainstream,
I say point me toward the door for Canada, baby."MobyLives 06/18/01

Sunday June 17

BESTSELLING
WHAT? Few Americans read. Those that do...well, a look at
the bestseller lists is not encouraging. "This is not progress.
This is not reading. These are not books. They're feel-happy lists
clotting pages."Philadelphia
Inquirer 06/17/01

Friday
June 15

APPEALING
TO A HIGHER READER: Conventional wisdom is that intellectual
books don't sell well. Yet Louis Menand's tome The Metaphysical
Club documenting the lives and influence of William James,
John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce and Oliver Wendell Holmes,
has quickly hit the best-seller lists, selling out its first U.S.
printing of 25,000, and is well into its second run.The
Globe & Mail (AP) (Canada) 06/15/01

OUR FLEXIBLE,
COMPENDIOUS, TORTURED, LANGUAGE: That ultimate arbiter of
our lexicon, the Oxford English Dictionary (just plain OED to
the in-crowd) has 1,250 new or revised entries. They're at the
OED website now, but won't be in the published edition for years.
Among the additions: d'oh, bad hair day, full monty, retail therapy.Nando Times (AP) 06/14/01

Thursday
June 14

INTELLECTUAL
FAILURE: The Australian Review of Books was a noble
experiment to appeal to Australian intellectuals. But that it
failed is "all too indicative of what is wrong with the intellectual-literary-artistic
scene in Australia. It is dominated by politics and partisan hatreds,
as well as irrational obsessions with figures like Rupert Murdoch.Sydney Morning Herald 06/14/01

THE
CRITICS REVIEWED: Three critics with reputations for being
tough reviewers have their own books coming out - and one can
see other critics polishing up their critical responses. The new
authors will just have to suck it up if the reviews are harsh.
"To be reviewed harshly is painful. If you are a critic you are
expected to shut up if it happens to you."The
New York Times 06/14/01(one-time
registration required for access)

BLOOMSDAY
IS COMING: Anyone who has ever tried to tackle James Joyce's
Ulysses alone knows what it is for one's brain to actually,
physically hurt. Possibly the most complex work of twentieth century
fiction, the tome has nonetheless attracted a devoted following.
This Saturday (June 16) is "Bloomsday," the day on which
Ulysses takes place, and the Joyce fans will all be coming
out of the woodwork. Chicago Tribune
06/14/01

Wednesday
June 13

READING
BERLIN: Berlin's first International Festival of Literature
opens with 100 writers from around the world. "The program
ambitiously sets out to present the literatures of the world as
comprehensively as possible, with the underlying hope that quantity
will automatically translate into quality at some point."Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 06/13/01

Tuesday
June 12

NAMING
RIGHTS: A book without a title is...well, something pretty
hard to sell. But choosing that right title - and hoping it hasn't
been used by someone else in the meantime - is a tricky business.Poets & Writers 06/01

PRESENTATION
COUNTS: Some people were not surprised that Kate Grenville's
The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize. They were
in the audience when "the shortlisted authors read extracts
from their work to a paying audience. Grenville's performance
was the one that really stuck in the mind... despite the competence
and skill of the other pieces, her reading was invested with a
different level of energy and enthusiasm."The Guardian (UK) 06/09/01

SELF-PORTRAITS
IN PROSE: "To talk about oneself used to be considered
unseemly: the classic autobiographies and the classic novels that
pretend to be somebody's memoir all begin by offering extenuating
reasons for doing something so egotistical. Even now, when self-centeredness
hardly requires an apology, a book of self-examination, a novel
cast as a personal recollection, continues to invite a self-justifying
explanation."The New Yorker
06/18/01

THE
MARRIAGE OF NAPSTER AND E-BOOKS: Audio books are going high-tech.
In place of that box full of cassettes, now there's a direct download
to your MP3 player. "The thing has no moving parts. You can
throw it against a wall and it still works. It's far superior
to buying or renting or ordering it by mail, and maybe having
to pack it up and send it back. And it's cheaper, too."Atlanta Journal-Constitution 06/12/01

ELECTRONIC
PAPER NOW AVAILABLE IN COLOR: Electronic paper "never
needs a backlight. In addition, it only needs power when the image
changes. Once an image has been produced it will remain visible
even with the power switched off." According to the manufacturer,
"Laptops, palmtops and cellphones with rigid electronic paper
screens will be on the market within the next two years."The New Scientist 06/06/01

Monday
June 11

FEED
STARVES WITH SUCK: Two eminent web publications - Feed
and Suck - shut down operations Friday as the internet
shakeout of content sites continues. Suck was known for its irreverence,
Feed - often linked to here on ArtsJournal - for its thoughtful
consideration of ideas. Inside.com
06/08/01

BUYING
IN TO THE NEW YORKER: So what does it take to get your
writing in The New Yorker magazine? How about a little
cash up front? "According to the May 8 edition of the industry
e–newsletter PW Daily, to follow in the footsteps of Nabokov,
Cheever, Updike and Salinger all you have to do is 'ante up a
premium ad fee. That's what it will take to buy an advertorial
excerpt in the pages normally reserved for the superliterati'."Mobylives 06/11/01

Sunday
June 10

SERIAL
WRITING: Fifteen prominent Irish writers collaborate on a
novel, each contributing a chapter to the project. It's not a
great book, but "the committee approach adopted in Yeats
Is Dead! capitalises on something which many of us have secretly
known for some time: most contemporary Irish novelists are best
appreciated in small doses."The
Sunday Times (UK) 06/10/01

AN
ORIGINAL AS RAW MATERIAL: There is a long tradition of artists
appropriating characters or ideas out of other artists' work and
enlarging, expanding or retelling the work from a different perspective.
So how is novelist Alice Randall's retake of Gone with the
Wind any different?The Globe
& Mail (Canada) 06/09/01

Thursday
June 7

ANOTHER
CHAPTER OF ULYSSES HITS THE BLOCK: James Joyce's manuscript
draft of the "Circe" chapter of Ulysses sold
for $1.5 million six months ago. Now, a draft of the "Eumaeus"
chapter is available, and is expected to go even higher. "The
44 hand written pages, covered in notes, revisions and amendments
in three coloured inks, should fuel the [Joyce] industry for decades
to come."The Guardian (UK)
06/05/01

THIS
YEAR'S HOTTEST PUBLISHING PHENOM? Jabez - it's a kind of "anti-self
help book. "Since November, The Prayer of Jabez has
sold 4.5 million copies, zooming to the top of myriad best-seller
lists." What's the attraction? "It may be that the Jabez
craze is driven not so much by our insatiable desire to be richer,
thinner, more significant - but by our exhaustion in the effort."The New Republic 06/06/01

POETRY'S
PIECE OF THE PIE: "A pair of Canada's richest literary
prizes will be handed out tonight for the first time to one of
the country's most overlooked artistic groups -- poets. The inaugural
edition of the annual Griffin Poetry Prize -- which includes two
separate awards of $40,000 each -- will be announced at a gala
ceremony in Toronto." The Globe
& Mail (Toronto) 06/07/01

Wednesday
June 6

ORANGE
PRIZE WINNER: Australian novelist Kate Grenville wins the
Orange Prize, the UK's richest fiction award, worth £30,000, for
The Idea of Perfection. Margaret Atwood, who had previously
won the Booker Prize had been the favourite.BBC
06/06/01

READY
TO PILE ON? As a critic, James Wolcott is brutal in his assessment
of others - especially other critics. Now he's about to release
a book. A novel. About a cat. Revenge, anyone?New
York Magazine 06/04/01

Tuesday
June 5

E-BOOKS
FORGOTTEN? At this year's BookExpo, traffic was brisk in the
print-book areas. But "it was a different scene in the area
referred to by many conference goers as the Internet Ghetto. Business
on publishing's new frontier was quiet and the number of exhibitors
was way down, from 120 in 2000 to 80 this year. Last year, all
anybody talked about was e-publishing. This year, the subject
was as rare as an out-of-print book."Wired
06/04/01

WHAT
DO WOMEN WANT? FOR ONE THING, SCARY NOVELS: Crime fiction
"is more realistic, more violent and more anarchic than ever
before." But why is so much of it read - and written - by
women? "Girls are always being told not to go down dark alleys.
This fear stays with us for the rest of our lives. Writing or
reading about it is a way of taking the lid off it, of exploring
it, rather than just sliding around it."The
Guardian (UK) 06/04/01

IS THE
LORD OF THE RINGS REAL LITERATURE? It's been voted the
greatest book of the 20th century, and a jillion-dollar movie
version is on the way. The continuing debate about its status
was summed up 45 years ago by W. H. Auden: "Nobody seems
to have a moderate opinion: either, like myself, people find it
a masterpiece of its genre or they cannot abide it, and among
the hostile there are some for whose literary judgment I have
great respect ... I can only suppose that some people object to
Heroic Quests and Imaginary Worlds on principle; such, they feel,
cannot be anything but light 'escapist' reading."Salon 06/04/01

Monday
June 4

GENDER
WAR: The Orange Prize for Literature goes to "the best
English-language book authored by a woman and published in Britain."
But this year, administrators of the prize decided that a parallel
all-male jury would be created to come up with its own list of
finalists, but that only the decisions the all-female jury would
count. "It's at this point that most people intelligent enough
to read and write, or at least to blink their eyes, might begin
to suspect that establishing two competing juries, one male and
one female, for the same award was a surefire headline-grabbing
publicity stunt designed to morph into a headline-grabbing gender
war."Ottawa Citizen 06/04/01

HOW
TO RUIN THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY: Australia proposes to
change its copyright laws and admit books published in other countries
without tariff. "But if Australia becomes an open market,
the Australian publisher will have to compete with American and
British editions of the same book. Safe inside their own copyright
territory, the Americans and British get Australia as a bonus.
They don't even have to pay the author for this new market, because
of the firmly entrenched practice of paying export royalties."Sydney Morning Herald 06/04/01

BOOK
SALES DOWN: "Despite a healthy economy and the popularity
of J.K. Rowling's novels about a kid wizard, sales of general
interest books dropped 3.3% in the USA last year, according to
an industry study." USAToday
06/04/01

HYPING
A FLAT MARKET: Attendees at the annual BookExpo in Chicago
say the book industry has been flat for two or three years.
"The Internet gets part of the blame. People turn to the
Web for information they might once have found in a book. What
they don't seem to be doing yet in big numbers is downloading
e-books to personal computers, PalmPilots or e-book reading
machines."The Plain Dealer
(Cleveland) 06/04/01

Friday
June 1

DOING
AN END-RUN ON AMAZON: As bookselling continues to become a
business of megastores and online behemoths, Oregon's famous independent
bookseller, Powell's, has been a beacon for those retailers struggling
against the big chains. Now, Powell's online counterpart has struck
a major deal with several national magazines which will give the
store much-needed exclusive exposure on the mags' heavily-travelled
web sites. National Post (Canada)
06/01/01

BOOK
E-WARDS: Surprising some, administrators of the National Book
Awards say e-books will now be considered prizes. "The new
rules will mean that any book published exclusively as an e-book
can be considered by judges in the categories of fiction, nonfiction,
poetry and young people's literature on its 'literary merit' just
like any other book."Inside.com
06/01/01

JANE
AUSTEN, WHERE ART THOU? Are writers and publishers of fiction
failing their readers and disguising political harangues as narratives?
One critic thinks so: "Every modern novel I read is about
one or more of the following three things: a weak and passive
woman victimized in the most ghastly and degrading way; a person
of colour or a homosexual or someone with a visible disability
ruined by a fat, conscienceless, moronic white person; or endemic,
and/or unsolvable poverty caused by heedless First World greed."
National Post (Canada) 06/01/01

ENVISIONING
THE E-LIBRARY: Representatives from countless U.S. public
libraries met in Chicago this week to discuss everything from
funding to PR. But the hottest topic was technology, and the expected
rise of the e-book. "Few conclusions were reached, but that
wasn't the point. Tuesday's meeting was much more than an example
of how libraries, particularly public libraries, are willing to
go to the mat to bring the newest of digital technologies to the
widest of audiences." Chicago
Tribune 06/01/01